eBooks- Best Practice

[Michelle Rinker]

My school adopted Follett Shelf this year but use by students and teachers has been minimal (to say the least). I would like to hear how others have been approaching their eBook collection. Does anyone check out hardware (Kindle, Nook, iPad etc.) for the purposes of eBook loans? I look forward to sharing ideas.

Michelle

[Barbara Boyer]

We(Shanghai American School) opted to go buying the ebook route instead of shelf...which has been a disaster because the downloaded ereader does not work in China.  We are working with the company, but it has been a big disappointment. I am wondering if the shelf would be any  better now that you can use it on the iPads?

[Michelle Rinker]

Our Follett Shelf sat for the whole year unused- mostly because there is the perception that the Internet here in Myanmar is so bad (when in fact it's actually quite good now). The fact that Shelf didn't allow patrons to download to a Kindle/Nook/iPad was a huge deterrent as well... which is no longer the case. I have yet to test out Shelf with my library iPads... will let you know how it goes!

[Barbara Boyer]

So...how are you using iPads in the library.  I have to make a case for the use in the library or I will lose them. I have so caught up in the management for classroom use, that I have had very little time for library use.  I will be getting some for just library use. We have used them for search stations with 1st graders and some fun lit stuff, but the classrooms are also doing that...would love to hear what you are doing!

[Michelle Rinker]

Hi Barbara-

I just got a set of 10 iPads about 3 weeks ago and so I'm just starting to introduce them in the library. I used them for a Lit Circle on the book Poppy that I was doing with the Gr. 3- we watched Avi author videos on You Tube, used the Google dictionary tool for our vocab as we were reading and also used them for quick fact look-up when we had questions about mice, porcupines and Great Horned owls. The kids LOVED having them handy during the Lit Circle.

I have also used a single iPad hooked up to my flat screen to read Oliver Jeffers The Heart in a Bottle which has an amazing interactive App. The kids came up one at a time and touched the screen... the others watched and were totally engaged (ideally I would have the App on all 10 iPads but at $4 per unit it becomes an expensive lesson... but I hope to slowly build the App collection over time.

For poetry month I will be getting one of the poetry Apps (like a fridge magnet builder) and the Gr. 4-6 will do some poetry on the iPads. We will also use Skitch to take a photo and then write a haiku on top of the image.

Looking forward to hearing what others are doing!

Michelle

[Ellen Marie Nugent]

Hi Michelle,

Thanks for these great elementary ideas but we (Shanghai American School) have been frustrated trying to incorporate the iPads into secondary library use. There are great apps for secondary classroom curriculum but our library attempts have not that successful. For example, we have downloaded books that are part of the classroom curriculum and the students came into the library to read the novel and read other student comments then add their commentary to the ebook. However many of the students noted they didn't like reading on iPads and didn't gain anything from reading peers comments. I am not ready to give up but we are ordering more Kindles as they are heavily used in the secondary library. 

See you next week, Ellen